Salems Confession
by Sun Kasai
Summary: "Hello. My Name is Salem and it was me who destroyed the World." Did you ever wonder what drived Salem... and what would have happened if fate was not so kind to a certain young woman? Here is your answer. Entry for the Writers Anonymous Character Development Challenge or WA Character Development Challenge.


**Disclaimer: Welcome back ladies and Gentleman. Today I bring you another RWBY one shot. This time the center is about the Grimm Queen herself Salem and the Silver eyed Ruby Rose, but be warned… This is filled with Death and sadness. It is as well my entry for the Writers Anonymous Character Development Challenge or WA Character Development Challenge.**

Salems Confession

What a filthy paper. Old and dirty, on the brink of falling apart. Well, it will be enough.

I know that this will probably never be found. There is nobody who could find it, at least as far as I know. There are no Kingdoms anymore. Everything has become the Wasteland I once wished for.

The beautiful Mistral? Today, it is devoid of all Life, only one big empty Graveyard.

The strong Vacuo? It was torn apart, piece by piece. All the proud warriors, swatted away like flies.

The advanced Atlas? All its technology, was powerless against the forces wishing to destroy it.

Now I am here, sitting in Vale inside some old House. Everything around me destroyed. Not even the Creatures of Grimm exist anymore, to Rule over the Darkness.

And it was all by my hand.

Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself. I should explain it all, from the very beginning. I know that this will never be read by a single soul… but despite that, I will confess.

Hello. My Name is Salem and it was me who destroyed the World.

Heh, who would have thought I say this one day?

Maybe I should start from the very beginning. I was once a proud woman. I was one of the smartest Women in all of Remnant. I was the head who lead the building of the CCTS, the Cross Continental Transmit System. I wanted to brighten the World. All before it went dark.

See, even if I was a scientist, I was a Mother as well. I had a little girl to call my own. She was everything I had. I loved her unconditionally. Out of all the things I ever created, she was the best. I even had a Husband. I lived, what you would call, a perfect life…

Anyway, as you could guess, it wasn't meant to last. My Husband died in an accident in the Dust Mines. I was broken after that, but I stood strong for my Daughter. She was my pillar of strength…

Until it was taken away from me as well.

One day, we had a major breakthrough in our studies. Our current topic was the studying of Grimm. We wanted to find out what they are made of, so we may one day finally be able to rid our World from them. We wanted to run a test on a Beowolf, the Alpha of his pack. I thought that I developed a Serum that could domesticate the Grimm. It worked by suppressing their intent to kill. Proud of my creation, I held my daughters hand as they led the Grimm inside the big testing area. The Beowolves eyes were somewhat foggy… even as my Daughter touched its nose.

The rest of the evening went by surprisingly successful. Me and my Daughter rode on the Creature of Darkness, across the entire area. It pretty much ate out of our hands. The staff and was overjoyed. All the research had finally showed success. There right in front of the Creature that destined to kill us all, I laughed. The staff laughed as well. I could hear some already opening champagne bottles. Then my daughter laughed as well.

And the Grimms eyes, became sharp.

See, the Grimm are attracted by negative emotions, but their main existence is bound to positive emotions. Despair and sadness is like a drug for them, they kill and kill only to see people suffer, so they could feat on their negativity. Too much positive emotion in a little area makes them feel more anger than you could ever imagine. A deep hatred builds inside them and if there are no defenses like Walls between them and the source…

Before I could react, the Grimm slashed across my stomach, the entire building stopped at once in utter shock. As I could open my eyes, all I saw was my Daughter…

She... she suffered more than just a scar.

Heh, now the paper gets wet as well. I still seem to have some tears left.

After the burial, I was told to take some time off. I was supposed to Grief, deal with the events, let my wounds heal, eventually move on. Today, I know that it was my entire fault. I was cocky, overconfident and too proud in my own abilities.

But, let me ask you something. If you were to be responsible for the death of the one thing you loved over everything else, would you accept it?

No… you wouldn't… I know because I didn't.

I felt nothing but denial at first. It couldn't be my fault. I was flawless. In my entire Carrier that was the first time one of my products failed. It wasn't me who killed my Daughter, it was the Grimm.

With that in mind, I concentrated all my Power to killing all Grimm.

I joined a troop whose mission was to find were they come from. If there was something like a 'First Grimm', who started it all. We traveled for such a long time, into the most distant of Places. By the end we found what we searched for, with me as the only survivor.

I discovered a puddle filled with some sort of Black Goo. I reached forward to take some samples, however I was surprised by a Beowolf. He growled at me and in shock, I fell into the midnight black substance.

Now, I want you to imagine something. Imagine having the worst pain you ever felt, both inside and outside your body. Imagine syringes, digging into every inch of your skin, as they inject the pain into you like a poison. Imagine how you wildly trash around, crying, begging for the pain to stop.

This was how it felt for me.

When I finally emerged from the hellish puddle, I was gasping for air, tears streaming across my cheeks. I just lay there, on the ground, glad to still be alive after all this. Then, I remembered the Beowolf. Turning around I looked him straight in the eye...

and rubbed his face into my chest.

He was completely harmless. He had no desire to hurt me, let alone kill me. He was completely tamed. My wonder about that was only matched by the way my appearance changed. My skin turned white and black veins were covering my body.

I should have felt scared by this, shocked at least… but… I didn't.

In fact, I didn't feel anything at all. No sadness, no more grief over my daughter's death. I was freed.

With that in mind, I ended up making myself a home in this wasteland. I felt content with my life. The Grimm accepted me as their Mother and I accepted them as my children. I still felt things however, but all through some kind of… cloth, all emotions were in some way muffled so I didn't fell the complete force of it. What would have been for you the happiest of your moments in your entire life was for me like a little snicker at best.

I didn't really mind it. I was 'happy' with what I had, until I realized something.

The Grimm, my 'Children', were destined to rule the world. They were here before humanity, before Faunuskind. The Dark Brother of Creation meant them to be the dominant Force on earth, destroying whatever his other brother had created. This lead me to have the first emotion, that was able to break through this cloth.

Hatred.

I hated them with every part of my body. So, I swore that I would make them disappear from Remnant.

In a way I succeeded, but more about that later.

One time as I walked through the Woods, planning on how to gain the world back, I stumbled across a little Girl. She lied there, beaten, alone, dirty. She was easy prey for the Grimm. That however, caused another emotion to fight its way through the Cloth (it will be four in total as I would discover later).

Pity.

I couldn't watch this girl just get eaten by a Grimm, so I took her in, raised her back to health. Her name was Cinder and she ran away from home. It seems like she didn't had the best upbringing, something that somehow triggered my hatred. With that in mind, I asked what she wanted, she replied with:

"I want to be feared."

Well, who am I to deny this wish?

She was the first person I would deem 'worthy' of living in the perfect world I was about to create. After her, I added numerous others, a Scorpion Faunus, a Headmaster to only name a few.

Over the time, as my plan developed, the little Cinder grew older. She sometimes even slept in my Bed and I became to actually care for the little, beaten, dirty girl from past times. It made me feel my third emotion.

Love.

I know, "A Grimm capable of loving? That sounds absurd!" and I would agree, but remember, I WAS a mother.

Then came the time were we had to gain more allies. A group named the 'White Fang' was eventually getting my Daughters interest. She just recently succeeded in gaining the Fall maidens powers (some stupid huntsman tried to interfere, but he came to late), so I was little worried. Well, I should have made sure that this 'Adam' didn't know about how the Maidens powers work.

He killed my Daughter in her sleep. Well, to be accurate he let some girl named Ilia kill her and made her look in the Chameleons eyes, letting her be the last thought she had, before she died.

As the news reached me, I was feeling more Hatred than ever before.

Throwing all logic and plans aside, I lead an entire army of my strongest Children into eradicating the White Fang. They were working on conquering Vale for their cause and with the Fall maidens Powers they weren't exactly unprepared. His first stop was the Academy were the unsuspecting Students fell like flies. As I arrived on the Battlefield, there was already a lot of Chaos and destruction.

It could have raged on for days, weeks, Months, Years even. But I only remember one thing:

Me ripping Adams head of his Body and feeding him to my Children.

As everything was done, there were no survivors.

Or so I thought.

As I was about to return to my home, I discovered a Young girl in the rumbles. Her hair was red, stained with the Blood of others and her Cape was shred to pieces.

I felt pity for her.

I ended up taken her back home with me and nursing her back to health just as I did with my Daughter. My council was against the idea. A silver eyed warrior, within my palace? It is like singing your own death wish. Well,

they soon found out that saying this, was like uttering a Death Wish.

Ultimately, no one dared to even cross with the Red-haired Girl. Believe it or not, but I have grown protective over the little one. Inside me, something yearned to have her as my Child, as if the Mother in me begged for another chance.

So, I cared for her.

I learned her name was Ruby Rose. She was in Beacon together with her Sister and had a wonderful Team consisting of other girls, she had grown to care for. All of them, have been ripped away from her. I felt like the Pity was overwhelming me. A little bit of Sadness tried to break through the Cloth as well, to no avail. Instead, Love was starting to develop. I asked her what she wanted. She replied with:

"I want the pain to go away."

So, who was I to deny this wish.

I tried EVERYTHING. I told her from my own past, offered as much Motherly comfort as I could, I even turned her into the next Fall maiden (Ilia was all to gladly dying for this, after some weeks in my prison), yet… it never helped.

Than one day… she came up with a solution. She wanted me to turn her into a Grimm like I was. Ruby only wanted the pain to go away. Eventually, after some consideration, I obliged.

Remembering the pain I felt when i transformed, I gave her a narcosis. It was all I could do to make the process a little bit more bearable. I slowly put her into the same puddle I once fell into, her skin turned White, black Veins appeared over her body…

Than her silver eyes snapped open and she screamed.

It was a heart wrenching scream. Despite the Narcosis she woke up and felt now all the pain I did. She quickly swam out of the puddle and cried as I held her. I tried to reassure her, telling her all will be better now, but than I did the mistake of looking into her eyes, nothing but hatred staring back at me.

Do you remember when I said that every emotion was felt like it was damped by a Cloth? I said that the first emotion who was able to break through was Hatred. That was the exact same thing that happened with Ruby.

She grabbed me by my throat, nothing but pure hatred filling her body, chocking me with all her might and the last emotion managed to break the cloth.

Fear.

I don't know if she planned it or not, but in that moment Ruby absorbed the Grimm Essence from my Body. With every second my powers faded, my Skin turned back to normal and the Veins disappeared. After some Minutes, I lost consciousness.

When I woke up again, I was turned back into my Human self. The area around me was completely destroyed. It would take me some time but eventually, I found out what happened.

Apparently, Ruby's hatred had caused her to go on a quest to destroy the world. She killed the members of my Council first and then moved on to attack Vacuo, which fell with almost laughable ease, not expecting the big attack.

After I gained the information that the 'Reaper' was going to destroy everything, I discovered another side effect of me being human again. There was no cloth anymore, to hold back my emotions.

I cried for days, to no end. All the sorrow, guilt, sadness and bitterness I build over all these years and the Grimm inside me suppressed were now flooding back with more intensity than ever before.

When I finally stopped to cry, I made my way towards the remaining Kingdoms. I thought maybe I could help turn this all around again. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case.

Wherever I went, I was already too late. The Faunus of Menagerie where slaughtered like Livestock. The Intelligent minds of Atlas were reduced to Brain matter on the streets. In Mistral it came all to end. In a twist no one had expected, Grimm, Faunus and Humans combined were trying to hold back the enemy. Fear was indeed a powerful emotion.

I decided to just go. It was hopeless to try and stop her anymore. I went to Vale, where once Beacon stood to be exact. To the very place were, in a way, it all began. Here Ruby Rose has died.

I can hear her. She is just behind me. I am the last thing remaining on Remnant. I think she is waiting for me to finish this letter before she kills me. Well, I guess I should hurry than.

Hello, my name is Salem… I am responsible for destroying the World.

And I am Sorry.

 **Wow… that was probably the darkest thing I ever wrote.**

 **Well… I think it would be the best if you read now something to cheer you up again. Like some Fluff of your favorite ship or something. I have some Comedy Stories as well on my Profil if you need any…**

 **Anyway, thanks for reading and lets see how well this little One Shot fairs in the Challenge.**

 **Have a nice day :)**


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